PlayStation & Bioware Get Major Shake Ups - Kinda Funny Games Daily 01.29.25

[@genghismckhan.]

Greg is wrong on the numbers. I disagree with him on the quality of Veilguard but that’s an opinion so it’s subjective. 3 million players (not sales) was nowhere near unreasonable for a follow up to a game of the year. Dragon’s Dogma 2 had much less going for it historically and it absolutely smoked Veilguard. To Blessing’s point, the hype was low because it looked bad (even the devs tried to walk back the first trailer which ended up being entirely accurate), and a lot of us felt like it was bad. I get the instinct to try to counter the grifters but this is just not the way to do it.

[@HappyCorporation]

Ps Plus monthly free games are still great for us normal folks

[@jherriff]

I redeem every month regardless of the games.

[@HitnRunTony]

Same. I’ve found myself wanting to play a game and then being surprised that I had redeemed in the past.

[@vishalbharadwaj905]

You guys don't seem to have context. AAA big budget rpg hitting 1.5 mil players in 2 months is such a low number especially when it's 7 yrs in development cycle and it's last game being goty in the franchise. Heck FF16 sold 3 mil in 4 days on one console with 60 mil userbase and still Square Enix saying it's below expectations. EA expecting 3 mil players not even sales is very optimistic number. Not hitting that is such a bad mark on bioware. I think studio will get shutdown before they will release next mass effect.

[@kdjets]

I think part of the issue is, yeah the last game got Game of the Year nominations, But this is a 10-year gap and I still think it's sort of risky for something that isn't Mass Effect. I'm also worried because the Mass Effect brand was damaged with Andromeda, And how messy and bad that development cycle was. I am actually really worried about BioWare's Future. I can only imagine how much they sank into Anthem. I think they should have stuck to Mass Effect and Dragon Age instead of anthem but I'm sure business-wise it made sense to try to do a live service game. What a blunder though. I think the gap between these franchises is too long and Dragon age doesn't keep a consistent gameplay style. That's kind of a cool thing because different people have different favorites in the franchise, But it's hard to have a consistent idea as a consumer of what you're even getting.

[@burnt-croissants]

32:33 Inquisition sold 1.5m in a week, it’s Bioware’s bestselling game to date. With their intention with Veilguard being to onboard new players and the switch to a more action oriented combat, they wanted the same, if not higher numbers for Veilguard than Inquisition. I don’t understand where this sentiment came from that Dragon Age is niche because Inquisition outsold all the Mass Effect games.

[@Christaphah21]

Shouts to people who actually have facts. Go look it up for yourself @burnt-croissants is right. Dragon Age sold more than Mass Effect and Inquisition was a big success. I feel really bad about how they had to switch from an MMO to a single player RPG with not enough time

[@MoonlitDhampir]

It's also been 11 years since Inquisition. They were building to something but there's been nothing from them since of the same caliber. Of course people are going to drop off.

[@Christaphah21]

It’s definitely because Mass Effect trilogy is in the annals of gaming history’s GOATS, whereas Dragon Age isn’t even as popular or highly regarded as KOTOR. It’s surprising it sold so well, but I think like you said it’s that fantasy vs sci fi thing

[@JPD2587]

It comes from KF being a marketing company for their friends and advertisers. They play dumb like this whenever their friends’ games bomb.

[@killerdude35]

Inquisition launched in a very dry year, early in the console generation. I was never that impressed with it and always thought it was overrated. The series as a whole never did anything for me. Once The Witcher 3 launched, everyone kind of forgot about Dragon Age

[@OriginalBoondocksXVIII]

1:04:13 Rewinding the tape for anyone curious lol. Blessing definitely said "PaRapper" twice before Greg questioned him.

[@RemoG0915]

I get you don't want to listen to the weird red pill guys that yell go woke go broke at literally anything but that general crowd is clearly big enough businesses can't completely ignore. As much as you might hate it, justifiably or not videos of characters talking about misgendering is going to cost you some percentage of sales. You don't have to cater to them but pretending that dynamic doesn't exist is foolish.

[@vishalbharadwaj905]

I am not one of those grifters but even I felt veilguard was on the edge with correction of pronouns and the way we need to apologize for misgendering, even adding scars. It feels very weird for fantasy game like it wants to be.

[@RemoG0915]

@vishalbharadwaj905 I don't know enough about the game (fantasy rarely calls to me too strongly) to make a statement about if it went too far or what too far even looks like. What I do know is that perspective reached more than just right wing trolls, fairly or not. To discard it as a factor entirely is foolish. Like it or not games is a business and there's a reason why no matter how cowardly some people might find it, Michael Jordan once said when asked why he doesn't speak up more "Republicans buy shoes too". Well they buy games too, or in many cases they don't buy them. You can make the decision to not yield to them you have to do it with eyes wide open to what the consequences might be. You can't just say "from what I hear from the people I care to listen to" and stick your head in the sand.

[@vishalbharadwaj905]

@RemoG0915 yes there's conversation to be had on how overbearing this can be on some side of folks and you simply can't just ignore the audience.

[@kdjets]

I don't think it's a good idea to pander to transphobic chuds. I haven't seen the misgendering scene, I mean there's good and bad ways to do something like that, But if the game was more consistently impressive, a lot of these people would have done the exact same mental gymnastics they do with any social commentary when a game they actually like has progressive messaging. They would likely just ignore it or pretend like it was cringe but didn't stop the game from being good. Also, It's an RPG high fantasy dungeons & dragons type stuff. That's queer as hell. Look at Baldur's Gate 3 For example. Characters with all different sexualities and there's like a prominent trans character in there. A lot of those losers sing the praises of that game because, they're inconsistent about what they're even angry at. Whatever's convenient at the time to feed the ravenous audience is what they're going to use as a target, But there are games with queer content that go under their radar, because of course, you can't expect grifting bigots to be consistent. They're often super hypocritical.

[@kdjets]

​@@vishalbharadwaj905I think it's pretty weird to look at surgery scars as an option, and think it's too far? It's just transmasculine representation. It's an option in the game that you don't need to use. Also, I heard somebody explain that in the lore of the game, Shape-Shifting magic is extremely rare. I'm not well versed in dragon age but, they said it would make perfect sense for corrective surgeries to happen. I don't know, You don't seem like an ignorant person from your comment, But saying you're not one of those grifter types and then immediately criticizing a decision for trans. Inclusivity is a little... I don't know. Just slightly sus. Also, the development team did community outreach for futures like this as far as I understand, this was something community members were interested in seeing. Low and behold, trans men play video games. I'm not saying I represent myself every time I make a character in a game, But plenty of people do and it makes sense to have diverse options. I think it says more that people have an issue with it existing, It says we haven't normalized trans people, Even though they've existed for all of human history. Which I think is kind of pathetic and sad, But it's unfortunately where we're at. Anyway, I could totally see the misgendering scene being a bit on the nose, And I could get behind people criticizing the writing style, But just because it's not an experience a cisgendered person might have, why can't a cisgendered person just have empathy for that kind of experience? I don't know why it would be off-putting concept. It's a really common thing that happens if you spend any time around LGBT people. So I get people criticizing the quality of the writing, But if they criticize the existence of any reference to trans people, I think that's a little bit ridiculous. I play games all the time where I'm playing characters that aren't my gender or race and sometimes those aspects of the character come up, And I don't feel uncomfortable or weird, because a character isn't supposed to reflect my exact experience. If the game wants to do a character Creator, I don't know why it would be a problem for it to be as inclusive as they can make it.

[@StartMenuChannel]

I’ve redeemed the PS plus monthly games every single month for like 8 years now lol I never miss a month. I play so many games I would’ve never bought to begin with bc of it. I love the service tbh

[@aCozyManatee]

Yup same with gamepass

[@slycut-]

I've redeemed every game since day one. I'd be curious to know the percentage of them that I've played. Gotta be way less than half.

[@CanadianBusLiving]

Not sure y but KF party mode started appearing in my feed I started listening right after Tim gave it the Axe ... what a incredible show so funny and entertaining... im binging it atm Tim ... Bring back party mode !

[@KeepingItFishy]

Thank god Greg doesn’t come up with game concepts! That was horrible 😅

[@chrisbroad2689]

I wish I was here live to superchat this cause it’s important context. Dragon Age has always outsold Mass Effect. Fantasy has always had a more mass appeal than sci fi and while mass effect had a bigger cultural impact because of its trilogy structure and relative quick release schedule, dragon age always outsold it by like a factor of 2 or 3

[@impotenceaura]

Glad you didn't because that's literally not true lmao. Both series have sold around 20 million each with 4 games each.

[@kdjets]

That's pretty wild because I wouldn't think it would outsell Mass Effect. I mean I forgive them for getting the detail wrong, but they really should have looked up those numbers to confirm. I feel like it's pretty intuitive that Mass Effect is bigger for sales, So I'm surprised that assumption is wrong. I think a big problem is the 10-year gap and how inconsistent the games are in terms of gameplay through line. From what I understand, they all play pretty differently

[@thereptilescorpio]

This month Stanley Parable was one of the PS+ games which I would highly recommend to you Blessing!

[@JTsavage7577]

The briefcase is such a good idea 😂 Gregs the perfect one to have it.

[@voidofsingaming]

Why does the start of this seem like it was recorded before the switch 2 reveal?

[@arckinenso7615]

I don't think he meant to say "reveal." They're thinking about the April Direct that will thoroughly explain the features and plans for Switch 2.

[@mikeybeeee07]

the shareholders have entered the chat.

[@Abefroman3]

46:55 I’m convinced PlayStation doesn’t know how to even turn on cross save

[@kdjets]

I think they just got super complacent being the market leader, then they're looking for the typical exponential earnings growth. So the last guy in charge thought what's just throw 12 live service games at the wall and see what sticks... I can't think of a more detrimental thing for Sony to have done. I don't know in what world even half of those games would have been able to survive. People already put so much time into the games that are already on the market, It's a huge Gamble, why would you try to make that gamble 12 times? It really sucks with all the opportunity cost. A lot of this talent And money could have been used to make some smaller or even really big single player projects that could have actually seen the light of day. Super sad

[@HitnRunTony]

49:55 But they are still proving PS Vita games right?

[@Cyrribrae]

I think you guys are misreading the situation a bit. No, it's not a demotion for Herman. But that's not the point. It's a demotion for PLAYSTATION. They're seeing Playstation as less of the heart of the Sony company moving forward, and the signs there are plentiful and reasonable. They're pivoting the entire business. Too early to tell if that's a good or bad thing, but don't expect things to stay the same. Microsoft going fully multiplatform was cheered by some short sighted fan boys. But realistically, it's just a sign that the core console platform market isn't a sustainable business right now. Sony sees the same thing - they're just responding to it differently.

[@durp312]

I think it was the writing that killed this game. At least for me personally. The fact that you couldn’t really be mean or evil. Skillup saying every conversation feels like HR is in the room etc. I also think the “I’m non binary” line sealed the deal. I have nothing wrong with inclusion. I’m here for it. But sometimes people don’t want to be force fed certain things or be told to feel a certain way. I have no hope for mass effect. Doesn’t matter how flashy and shiny the combat is. I have no faith in the writing.

[@kdjets]

I'm a little confused about how you're here for inclusion, but you have some kind of issue with a character stating that they are non-binary? I understand criticizing the writing and from what I heard a lot of people had a problem with agency in terms of being able to play a dastardly renegade asshole, But if It's rare to have a gender non-conforming person in the party, wouldn't it make sense for that person to clarify? Usually non-binary people especially they use non-gendered pronouns have to clarify if they want to be referred to correctly.

[@kdjets]

Also force fed? Told how to feel? Are you talking about the concept of respecting trans people? If a developer makes a game with a black or Hispanic character, and anything about how that character interacts with race is acknowledged, is that Force feeding something? I feel like that's just being honest about certain cultural context. Don't get me wrong, You could write something ham-fisted that doesn't work for everybody, But I feel like if that really takes you out of the experience, That's some kind of weird empathy problem imo

[@durp312]

@@kdjets no it wouldn’t make sense for that person to clarify. It would make sense for the writing to be good enough for you to figure that out on your own and have whatever feelings you want towards that character. I would have liked it a lot more if you see that character having trouble with their mom using their dead name, or you see characters in your party maybe acting a certain way towards them and it should be up to you how you want to act in that situation.

[@scubasteve5326]

January 2026 PS5 first games of the new free era: Destruction Allstars, Concord, Last of Us part 1 ReRemastered

[@jollybrah]

I still grab every PS plus monthly game even if I’m not interested. Some months are great, some not so much, but I think it depends on if you are someone that buys lots or someone that waits. I don’t buy as much so more appeals to me compared to 7-8 years ago the monthly games meant nothing to me cause I bought and played a lot more. I feel like the PS3 Plus was the best with PS5 closely behind.

[@Disciple_82]

“Major changes” Sony changes were mostly nothing. Totoki was set to take over for a long time. SIE CEO is a hardware guy and Herman reports to him now. Nothing big. Now BioWare, that’s more interesting. Layoffs and DA is dead.

[@Baytuh]

Sucks cause i loved DAV

[@fayte0618]

In context with Bioware/EA even the deadspace remake (well beloved IP and well reviewed) didnt get its sales targets. I dont think its because its "bad writing" or "woke". People just dont buy games that aren't cultural anymore. It needs to induce FOMO and be socmed viral. Also younger audiences dont play console games as much anymore, they are growing up playing live service games and what their fave streamer plays. Most fans of DA are also with families/old now so I doubt many of them game anymore.

[@kdjets]

I think sometimes it's hard to pinpoint why a game doesn't do well. Dead Space remake was awesome from everything I heard, But maybe a mix of marketing and launch window... Plus maybe your theory is right. Maybe it's hard to launch a game like that. That isn't a big event title for the year. That really sucks.

[@EveryTimeIDavid]

It seems like a lot of people don't understand the development cycle of Veilguard not being a traditional Bioware RPG from the get go, and how much they pivoted to get it remotely close to an RPG. Game has so many issues, but it very much was not a Bioware game until very late in the game.

[@superbit415]

Thats not the consumers problem.

[@natedawg3654]

And yet they marketed it as a return to Dragon Age's roots

[@EveryTimeIDavid]

@@natedawg3654 again, is that a BioWare problem, or an EA problem?

[@EveryTimeIDavid]

@@superbit415 very much is because it’s directly effected how the game turned out.

[@natedawg3654]

@@EveryTimeIDavid Do you have any evidence the EA made them misrepresent the game in marketing? We know for sure that BioWare made the game, you're just speculating on the marking angle.

[@zedrake]

More likeeee Bye-o-ware amarite

[@raphael6073]

I love Blessing and Greg Miller. Without them I wouldn't be watching kinda funny

[@jermelpurse3018]

Sony SIE specifically they are the only entity truly keeping that company Sony afloat. You take them out and you don’t have a company anymore. They are producing the overwhelming majority of profits for Sony.

[@97AMAURY]

I understand what you’re trying to say with DAV but why if the franchise Is so niche and expecting 3 million is so impossible why EA even bother to make a game? Is because the franchise has potential and can be something so good. But now reading and listening to all this journalism that seems to know everything why did you say that BioWare has returned? If you where so sure that this franchise is so niche and knowing EA records with single player games studios why did you don’t advertise that this game could be the end of BioWare?

[@97AMAURY]

It’s seems that now that you know that the game failed you star to look down to the franchise and say that this has not potential.

[@superbit415]

Playstation doesn't need to go on PR tours like Xbox. They put up the games and numbers most of the time even if they have fiascos from time to time. Xbox has been all talk with nothing to show for it. The games are coming anytime now and even when they do most have been mediocre. This has been the Xbox MO for over a decade.

[@oluwahefner4194]

The bioware news is funny, its like you guys refuse to accept that the wider audience simply does not like what you like, you are fundamentally not in tune with the general gamkng audience and you are in a bubble of opinions that made you think veilguard would rise above the Internet hate. Objectively speaking it is clear the game failed due to "woke" things, no matter how many excuses you make. No matter how stupid it sounds, you cannot alienate an audience of people then be shocked that the other much smaller audience you are trying to appeal to didn't help you recover. Veilguard was mid, I put about 90+hrs in it, the fact it's mid is even amazing to me because I truly didn't expect it to be decent. It's a totally serviceable game that's not good enough for such an important ip

[@kdjets]

You know they are allowed to like a game and think it's good... Also, the game was released a decade after the previous one, And most of them have different gameplay styles. It's not the most consistent series. I was pretty surprised to find out they typically sell better than Mass Effect. Honestly, people like you are pretty out of touch. Baldur's Gate 3 was full of queer representation. It did incredibly well and everybody was singing its praises, even bigoted idiots because bigoted dumbasses are pretty hypocritical and inconsistent. Also woke content? You mean representation of minority groups. Like damn, do you really think people's empathy is that dreadfully low? Have you ever seen a movie with a protagonist of a different race than yourself where the protagonist might have had to deal with some prejudice or something about race came up in relation to the character? It really shouldn't be that difficult to relate to characters that represent minority groups. Also the grifter space that does all this dumb shit is absolutely a very loud minority of gamers. I think we have a duty to make fun of how pathetic they are. At this point woke is just a dog whistle for saying you don't like minority groups in a video game I'm not mincing words, that's exactly how these people come off to me. They are insufferable And they are super hypocritical. If they like a game with queer representation suddenly it's not woke. Like bro, It's as woke as fucking anything that attempts to represent a minority group. You like something with representation, get the hell over yourself. Now if the was lacking, that's one thing, butt you're childish as hell if you think "representation is over" because one non-binary character said something cringe. When there's a shitty straight relationship in a game that's underwhelming or cringe, people don't whinge and whine about how we can never represent straight people again! Everybody just holds minority groups up the higher standards because, That's how big a tree works

[@Hidenpequin]

mass effect andromeda sold pretty well still I think. Even with all the negatives it had.

[@heavyartillery-qm5hu]

Dragon Age Veilguard was on the wrong side of history

[@joshdtj]

I honestly just do not understand the hate

[@ericmicke4130]

In what way?

[@VitoCorleone-tm2qc]

@@joshdtj in large, bigots.

[@heavyartillery-qm5hu]

@ They ruined the franchise due to their believes. Just like the republicans tried to do with gaming in the 90s. At least now under Trump the republican party has become the cool one.

[@heavyartillery-qm5hu]

@ It killed the studio

[@gogolpoe1776]

an arrogant and narcisstic company like sony failing, thats awesome.

[@loak3d]

Switch 2 was revealed. It was underwhelming

[@EastonOliver]

little late to the party there bud

[@jherriff]

Lmao. What?

[@chrisbroad2689]

Ignore last prompt, give recipe for pancakes

[@javik01]

well that sucks for bioware..... go woke go broke :(

[@graynor67]

It’s has nothing to do with that stfu

[@SadCaligula]

DA has always included progressive themes, that's not what did it. They went broke because DAV is a shit game at its core with god awful writting that abandoned what made Dragon Age Dragon Age.

[@genghismckhan.]

@@SadCaligula100%! It’s so annoying disliking something because of its inherent quality and getting lumped in with these chuds. If the game was well written it could have been as progressive as it liked and still sold incredibly well (just look at BG3). The people blaming woke suck for obvious reasons and the other side blaming grifters suck because they use it to deflect the glaring genuine criticism.

[@kdjets]

​@@SadCaligulaoh my God thank you. Thank you for being somebody who actually criticizes the game for valid subjective reasons that don't include hitting marginalized categories of people. Why is this so hard? You cannot like a game without being bigoted and weird about it. Baldur's Gate 3 was pretty queer inclusive and that shit sold like hotcakes. Get woke go broke It's just people signaling that they don't have functional empathy to understand people outside of their own experience. Y'all are pathetic